Former John Locke Foundation Headliner Marlo Lewis explains to National Review Online readers this morning why “skepticism is justified” when it comes to Obama administrations claims about new federally mandated automobile fuel-economy standards.
If the standards are as beneficial as the agencies contend, why wouldn’t consumers demand, and profit-seeking manufacturers produce, vehicles built to the same or similar standards without regulatory compulsion? Fuel-economy regulation assumes that motorists do not want to avoid pain at the pump and automakers don’t want to get rich.
Experts will likely debate the economic impact of the new standard for years to come, as data become available regarding vehicle costs, fuel prices, and auto-industry profits and employment. The biggest cost, however, is one most experts are not talking about: the damage the administration’s fuel-economy agenda does to our constitutional system of separated powers and democratic accountability.
